Countdown to Warriors’ No. 7 pick: Dion Waiters looks like the guy

* 2:20 p.m. update: If the Warriors do end up trading down–which I don’t expect–look for St. John’s F Moe Harkless to be a prime target for them starting at the 12th slot.

-Just spoke to two NBA execs today and they both said that they expect Syracuse’s Dion Waiters to be there when the Warriors’ No. 7 pick comes up tonight.

There’s a lot of chatter that Waiters could go higher–at 4 to Cleveland or 6 to Portland–but for now, both wired-in execs say that the late-talk probably won’t pan out.

We shall see in a few hours. Obviously, things are exceptionally volatile at the top this year.

But if Waiters is there, both execs also believe that the Warriors will select him. I totally agree with them: If Waiters is there, he’ll almost certainly be a Warrior around 5 p.m. tonight.

No question, there was a lot of internal debate on this specific issue over the last few days in the Warriors’ draft room… apparently all the way through fairly late last night.

There still may yet be debate in the last hours and minutes up to the moment the Warriors have to make the official pick.
If North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes is there, he’ll have support. So will Weber State’s Damian Lillard and UConn’s Andre Drummond if either or both are on the board.

I hear even Illinois’ Meyers Leonard has some support among the scouts for the 7 pick, though that’s very unlikely to occur.

But most indications are that, unless Kentucky’s Michael Kidd-Gilchrist or Kansas’ Thomas Robinson somehow starts dropping, the Warriors are fairly well set to go with Waiters as a tough, play-making combo guard.

And there will be a lot of talk about going with Waiters, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson in a three-guard, Oklahoma City-like attack for long stretches–maybe not at the start of the games, but probably to finish a lot of them.

Also expect a lot of talk about Waiters’ toughness, something Jerry West and others believe is lacking in the current roster.

So if Waiters is taken ahead of the Warriors, they’ll be disappointed–West, for one, apparently believes that Waiters could be the second-best overall prospect in this draft, behind only presumptive No. 1 pick Anthony Davis.

He’s another guard; that doesn’t fit an exact Warriors need. He’s an asset, though, in West’s parlance. The best teams just collect the best players and let it all shake out in the years to come–if you have too many good players at one position, you can always trade one of them.

The key is to get good players.

But an important point: If Waiters does go ahead of them, that’d help the Warriors in a way because it’d lengthen out the depth of the top of the draft, and almost guarantee that Barnes, Lillard or maybe even Kidd-Gilchrist or Robinson would be there for them. (VERY unlikely on MKG and Robinson, I know.)

Barnes as a consolation prize, for instance, wouldn’t be a terrible result at all.

And if the draft goes exactly the way the Warriors don’t want it–Davis, Robinson, Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal, Barnes and Waiters all gone–that’d STILL leave the Warriors with a choice between taking Lillard or taking Drummond for purposes of a trade.

If the Warriors’ top 6 are all off the board, I’d look for a possible Drummond deal with Houston, which can offer a combination of things involving their three mid-round picks and Kyle Lowry, a tough guard the Warriors like.
But again, the likeliest scenario seems to be Waiters lasting to 7, and then he’s a Warrior.